


Oh Honey, There's Some Magic in the Dark

by itsallaboutflowermetaphors



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (keeping it vague to not spoil too much), 80's and 90's tech, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Ben will go on family vacation to Armie's little town every year, Brendol is a good father, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Edgy Ben, First chapter takes place in 1985, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Humor, Ireland, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Magical Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Misunderstandings, Muggle Armitage Hux, No Period-Typical Homophobia, Rated for Later Chapter, Secrets, Video & Computer Games, because Armitage deserves that, in future chapters:, rating might go up still
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-18 01:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20630567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallaboutflowermetaphors/pseuds/itsallaboutflowermetaphors
Summary: Roundstone, Ireland, August 1985The summer before his first year at Hogwarts Ben Organa-Solo goes on his first vacation to a muggle town. He stumbles into the garden of Armitage Hux, who is very confused by what he thinks is Ben taking a magic themed roleplay game too far.Written for Kylux xoxo 2018 week 5 Play Time, using roleplay, game and magic.





	Oh Honey, There's Some Magic in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this when the board for week five came out summer 2018 and despite it being so short i really struggled with it. Google and an Ireland travel guide from the 60’s were my best friends.  
Please tell me if I got historic stuff wrong. (Apart from the things I'm ignoring on purpose like homophobia).  
Chapter count is an estimation, I plan to write a chapter per summer holiday and then some.  
Thank you to [AshGunnywolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshGunnywolf/pseuds/AshGunnywolf) for beta-reading.  
Fic title is a misheard and then altered lyric from Try Try Try by Rachael Sage.  
Chapter title is from Take On Me by a-ha. (Which was very popular when the first chapter takes place.)  
Here’s [an inspiration playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1KJvwxHCVfaXhlKLfUJHG2?si=B_ji_-F_Sr6w_zJES2kziQ) and [historically accurate playlist (WIP)](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2VrbhFYa8Dmd00woKuefUm?si=YznnX7HeQwOM_JjFRmL-6g).

Armitage is eleven years old when he first meets the strange boy. He’s sitting in his family’s back garden because for once this summer it’s not raining and he’s not stuck indoors.  
A few golden gorse shrubs separate him from the small road next to their house, but no fence.  
‘There’s no need for one’, Brendol Hux always says, this far away from the main road there’s no traffic that Armitage needed to be protected from and no tourists that wouldn’t recognize private property for what it obviously was.

Well, his father was wrong, Armitage decides, when a boy about his age with short black hair is suddenly standing between the yellow shrubs, already clearly in their garden. He has a sheepish smile on his face and one hand lifted in greeting. He’s wearing a red t-shirt and cargo shorts.

“Hello,” he says, “Do you want to play Don’t Get Caught by the Troll?”  
Armitage looks at him in disbelief.  
“Don’t get caught by the troll?” he repeats slowly.  
“Yes, it’s like Catch but someone pretends to be a troll and has to catch the wizards and witches,” the strange kid explains as if his words are nothing out of the ordinary.  
“I’m Ben, by the way. My family is on holiday here. They're looking at the fishing boats, but it was super dull so Mum allowed me to leave,” Ben—apparently—adds quickly.  
It’s a lot to process , Armitage’s head is spinning a bit.  
In the end, he asks, “Why are you in my garden? There’s a playground next to the harbour. And how will your parents even find you?”  
Ben gives him a look. As if Armitage said something strange.  
He signs, “Those kind of playgrounds are boring. I wanted to explore! And trust me, my parents will find me.”

The way he says that sounds as if he’s keeping a secret. Armitage has half the mind to ask what the boy in his garden means, but he supposes Ben has a point.The only playground in Roundstone is boring. It’s just a set of swings, a sandbox, and a rusty slide. 

Ben has stepped closer while Armitage was thinking, standing just a meter or so away from him now.  
“So, do you want to play?” he asks, and Armitage decides the other boy is funny and that he was bored anyway. The weather is finally nice, and he’s just sitting around.  
“Yes,” he answers. “I’m Armitage. I’m not on holiday, I live here.”

Clearly excited to play, Ben’s face splits into a wide grin. He’s missing a front tooth. “So I was thinking: at home we usually pretend to be mountain trolls, but they don’t live around here. There’s no mountains. I guess we can be river trolls. The sea is kind of like a river, isn’t it?”  
The things Ben says are confusing, and Armitage can only nod along. He guesses Ben is very creative, or perhaps it’s a game all the kids in Ben’s hometown created together. 

“Great, you’re the troll first, and you have to catch me. Okay?” Ben says and bolts out of the Hux family back garden.  
Doing his best to catch up, Armitage takes off onto the gravel road, too. It’s not dangerous to just run on the small roads in Roundstone: less than 150 people live here, and the Hux’s home is the last one on their road. After that, the road narrows further and only leads to sheep and horses. Ben took off toward them. 

Armitage catches him soon enough and takes off to be chased by his visitor. After a few moments he risks a glance over his shoulder, he thinks he might be a decent bit ahead, and sees that Ben is taking ‘you are the troll’ far more literal than Armitage.  
Ben runs funnily with his arms flopping around and grunts. The unexpectedness of it makes Armitage laugh so much he can’t quite run properly, and Ben catches him easily.

Still laughing, the ginger doubles over and rests his hands on his knees, trying to regain his breath. He’s struggling because each exhale is still a wheezing giggle.  
Despite being the next to be chased Ben doesn’t run away, he’s laughing too, his head thrown back and hands clutching his sides. 

“You should have seen your face!” he wheezes.  
Armitage is very sure he should not have seen his own face.  
Slowly their laughter subsides and Ben explains that the troll has to pretend to be a real troll.  
“They are big and stupid, and make dumb faces. Mountain trolls have enormous clubs they like to swing, you know?” Ben explains, swinging an imaginary club and Armitage keeps thinking that Ben’s fantasy lore is weirdly developed. Maybe he’s got a book. Like Armitage’s book with dragon drawings, but with trolls.

And he expects Armitage to have read it.

Do you want to keep playing?” Armitage asks after Ben finishes his explanation. 

“We could,” Ben replies and then smiles wickedly, “Or we could go looking for gnomes in those yellow bushes.”  
“Gnomes?” Armitages asks, disbelief clear in his voice. “In the golden gorse?”  
“Yeah, of course!” Ben has walked ahead and climbed over a low stone wall. “Come on!”

Ben is terribly strange, Armitage thinks again, but he keeps following him anyway.  
After about an hour of sticking their heads into gorse hedges Ben declares that the gnomes must be hiding very well today. Or that maybe they don’t like prickly hedges that smell like coconut.  
Ben is sitting with his legs crossed on the ground now, he looks up at the sky and chews his lip. Armitage watches him.  
“I’d understand them. I don’t think I like those hedges either.” The fingers of his right hand are drifting over the small bloody welts on his other arm where the thorns scratched him.  
Then Ben lets himself fall onto his back.  
“Let’s look at the clouds. I never do that at home,” he says, and Armitage moves to lie down on the grass, too. 

After a few moments, Armitage decides that the clouds don’t look any different today. Just big and white and round. Normal it’s-a-nice-day-clouds.  
“That one looks like a sheep,” Ben says pointing up into the sky.  
“Don’t they all?” Armitage replies.  
“No! This one has a head and legs.”  
Armitage sighs at that.  
Ben’s findings after that are slightly more creative. Later Armitage sees a spoon, and Ben claims it’s a broomstick.  
“I wanted to bring mine, but Mum wouldn’t allow it.”  
“Makes sense to me,” the ginger mumbles while sitting up and stretching his arms above his head.  
“The big fields here are perfect for flying. But she worries as soon as I fly somewhere she can’t see me.” Ben sounds annoyed.  
Armitage barely raises an eyebrow by now, even though Ben’s answers still don’t make any sense to him. “You don’t need a broom to pretend,” he argues.  
Ben shoots him a look, a bit angry, like Armitage ‘doesn’t get it’.

Still later, after a bit more cloud gazing and talking, Armitage glances at his watch and realizes he has to hurry home to be on time for dinner.  
“Will you be back tomorrow?” he asks, and Ben nods. 

Ben keeps his promise. The next day he’s standing in the Hux’s back garden again. 

They venture out into the fields once more and play with a frisbee Armitage brought along. 

Ben still talks about river trolls and gnomes, but it’s funny so Armitage doesn’t stop him. 

They spend the rest of Ben’s holiday together, mostly inside the Hux family home because the rain and thunderstorms start again, and at the end Ben presses a piece of paper into his new friend’s hand. “Write me,” he says, “My mom will redirect the letters to my boarding school. I can’t use a phone there. I’ll write you back, I promise!”

Ben keeps his promise. Just a week after Armitage sends his first letter, he fishes Ben’s reply out of the post box.  
He writes about how exciting his new boarding school is and it all sounds terribly strange to Armitage.  
He assumes it’s because he has no idea what boarding schools are like. Every morning he rides his bike to the small school the next town over. There’s barely a dozen students in his year and there was talking of combing years before, too.  
Ben’s new school is big, that much Armitage realises. He writes about having classmates from England, Scotland, and even Ireland. He also writes about the school being a castle, having things like common rooms and courtyards. 

They write back and forth all throughout the school year, and after being home for Easter Ben writes that he convinced his parents to come back to Roundstone for the summer holidays.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading I hope you like it.  
Comments or Kudos would mean the world to me.  
Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/RainySidewalk), [tumblr](http://itsallaboutflowermetaphors.tumblr.com) and [dreamwidth](https://allaboutflowermetaphors.dreamwidth.org)  
I’m most active on twitter.


End file.
